[4] The German scholar Michael Praetorius mentions an Englishman who came to Germany with a small cittern, einem kleinen Citterlein, in his treatise Syntagma Musicum, published during the early 17th century.

[6]: 20–21 According to Sachs,[7] Board-zithers form the most important category from an occidental point of view because they include our stringed keyboard instruments.

This includes such diverse instruments as the hammered dulcimer, psaltery, Appalachian dulcimer, guqin, guzheng, tromba marina, koto, gusli, kanun, kanklės, kantele, kannel, kokles, valiha, gayageum, đàn tranh, autoharp, santoor, yangqin, santur, swarmandal, and others.

[9] Similar instruments along this design were developed over the following centuries, for example, the Japanese silk-strung koto; the siter of Indonesian gamelans; the qānūn (or kanun) of Greece and the Middle East; the valiha, a tube zither of Madagascar; and many others.

Increasing interest in "world music" has brought wider recognition to these other zither family members, both ancient and modern.

[11] In 1838, Nikolaus Weigel of Munich conceived the idea of adopting fixed bridges, adding additional strings, tuning them in the cycle of fifths, and chromatically fretting the fingerboard – effectively converting a rather crude folk instrument into the concert zither.

His ideas were not, however, widely accepted until 1862, when luthier Max Amberger of Munich fabricated a new zither based on Weigel's design.

Within a relatively short time the new design had largely replaced the old Volkszither (though still called by the same name among folk musicians) throughout central Europe, particularly in the Alpine countries.

And no less a composer than Johann Strauss II gave the instrument a prominent solo in one of his most famous waltzes, "Tales from the Vienna Woods".

During that period, a number of U.S.-based instrument manufacturers, many of them founded by, or staffed with, European (and especially German and Austrian) luthiers, were producing concert zithers.

The recently rediscovered recordings of the gospel singer Washington Phillips, who used two instruments simultaneously, have revealed the virtuosic capability of the chord zither to modern musicians seeking to revive it.

The soundtrack music for the film, which featured only a concert zither (no other instruments) – was performed by the Viennese musician Anton Karas.

[14] A Time magazine film preview stated that "the famous musical score by Anton Karas" would have the audience "in a dither with his zither".

Australian-born singer Shirley Abicair popularised the chord zither when she used it for accompaniment in her TV shows, live performances and recordings in Britain in the 1950s and '60s.

[18] Although interest in the zither had once more begun to wane by the late 1960s, owing to the two American vogues there are still many used instruments to be found, in various states of disrepair.

After World War II, Karas (according to zither scholar Günter Wittenstein, who was acquainted with him) performed on an instrument of larger dimensions than normal – with a 43 cm standard scale length for the fingerboard strings.

The zither is played by plucking the strings while it lies flat on a table (which acts as a resonator to amplify the sound), or it can be held on the lap.

On concert and Alpine zithers, the melody strings are pressed to the fingerboard ("fretted") with the fingers of the left hand, and plucked with a plectrum on the right thumb.

As a result, manufacturers attempted to simplify the instrument with various keyboard devices attached to the melody strings (Marxophone, dolceola, celestaphone, tremoloa, etc.).

For example: Canadian musician Jeff Healey, featured in the film thriller Road House in 1989, used a zither technique to play electric guitar.

Blind from the age of one, Healey began playing when he was three with the instrument flat on his lap, left hand above the fingerboard in the same manner as a zitherist.